"Everyone breaks at some point."

If you want to be a cop then you need to have the strength to walk away when you realize the one breaking is you.

Is anyone else becoming increasingly concerned that gold is an admin. If you find me banned in an alley somewhere, you'll know why.

The police absolutely work for us. We pay their paychecks, either through traffic tickets or taxes (hopefully more the latter than the former, but I don't know, some days it seems like they're out to get you). If they don't work for us, we ought to fire them.

"But in seriousness, unless some new evidence comes to light, the officer in this case probably won't be charged."

If it's determined that his injuries were solely because of a car crash (how could that have happened in this case?), then it is absolutely negligence. However, he died in custody, so it's almost irrelevant. I don't understand how a suspect can die in custody without receiving medical attention of any kind. How can you miss a severed spine? If your plumber comes to your home, "fixes" your sink, leaves, and then two days later, your house floods, you're gonna suspect him of fucking something up, right? So please forgive me if I suspect the police are in the wrong when someone dies in such a way when they just happen to be in custody. It's too convenient. Unless they, like Tolstoy said, mishandle evidence, which they are known to do, there will be new evidence or a confirmation of old evidence, but both lead to the same conclusion.

A "screen test" is when you have someone in the back of your police car handcuffed and not belted in and you slam on the brakes and cause the victims head to smash into the screen dividing the front and rear of the car. They can't brace themselves due to the handcuffs, so serious facial/head injuries can and do occur. The cops say that the victim just decided to irrationally bang his head against the screen for no reason. To be honest I haven't looked into the details of the Baltimore police homicide that has caused the current revolt, but from what you said, that's what it sounds like happened to me.

Abge - Maybe I'm just viewing the police as human beings who, like the rest of us, are flawed and can make mistakes. I mean yeah, in the highly publicized cases like the officer in South Carolina, or in Ferguson, the officer is clearly guilty and should be held up to the same standards.

But the other, less publicized deaths are the ones that I'm talking about. Like a deputy in Montana who killed a man because he thought he was pulling a weapon after a car chase (turned out he didn't have one on him). Cruiser video just shows him breaking down in hysterics afterwards. Should that officer be treated like a common criminal?

I think the solution is simple in principle but not simple in practice.
1. Police need the body cams and more training.
2. People need to stop wholeheartedly blaming the police and realize that both sides are at fault in many case. Right now (being from a low income area) I know that the culture of the "hood" (which I call home) is one that respects and encourages crime and violence while completely disrespecting authority... that type of culture needs to stop. Many of these cases would be avoided if people weren't breaking laws or resisting arrest in the first place (yes running is resisting arrest). I am not saying that the police arent sometimes wrong, yes there are numerous cases in which they are. But in numerous other cases the officer made a mistake, and that mistake is normally a judgement call that NONE of us could ever imagine making. It is life/death in some cases or at least from the perspective of an officer.
3. Police should be under their own code of justice. Very much like the military. The UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) actually is more responsive than the public judicial system and has far stricter rules and punishments. I think that officers should have a separate federal justice system that put them in front of a jury of their peers (Other officers but from different jurisdictions and of varying background and rank) which would eliminate the problem of people demanding that every officer be convicted of murder.

The problems that can arise from our current situation are this:
-More riots causing thousands even millions of damage not to mention deaths.
-Less officers volunteering for the job out of fear of their mistakes becoming a jail sentence; meaning degraded security or worse lower thresholds for officer-ship.

This requires a change in the people, the police, and the system.

If your mistake leads to a death, you get charged. I don't care what your job is.

No one is saying cops have to be perfect. They are saying they should be held to a higher standard than other people, just like a doctor is expected to do their best to heal no matter who their patient is. If they make a mistake, they should be accountable, just like in any other profession.

@bo- but you have never and will never be in a situation that would even remotely put you in a situation that you COULD make that mistake in. and even if you were you are protected in most states as it would become manslaughter or self-defense. so thats a HUGE double standard on your part.

abge - but if doctors misdiagnose and their patient dies as a result, they don't go to jail.

Yeah, because bo made the decision not to take a job where he would have the power of life and death in his hands. Cops do. it's not like anyone accidentally becomes a police officer.

@abge- but all other professions that have that risk are protected. doctors are protected as long as they can prove it wasn't negligence. Military professionals are protected as long as can prove it was necessary under the UCMJ

@abge- true. so we shouldn't have police then. someone has to do the job.

@gold

And if a cop follows SOP and someone dies, they won't and shouldn't go to jail either. But if they decide to become a vigilante and a suspect dies as a result, then they should rot in jail as the murderer that they are.

I am not saying we should make it so officers can get away with clear murder as in the SC case. BUT most cases are clearly not solely the officers fault.

I never said they were. Nor did I ever say that every time a cop kills someone it should be murder. But, when a cop doesn't follow SOP or uses excessive force and it results in death, it should be tried in court and he should be punished accordingly.

@abge - okay, I think we're largely on the same page then. I agree with most of what you've said as well as stuff like this:

"Instead we're getting thuggish gang members with badges and foul attitudes who view the public as a collective punching bag for their Roid Rage and other personal issues."

I don't think we are on the same page. You seem to think that it's OK for a cop to lose control and not be held accountable for his actions.

CB, if my father fails to construct safety caps on dangerous machinery at his carwashes and one of his employees gets his hand shredded, we get sued. That happened. (Luckily, the business is incorporated, so I can still afford to go to school.) If a cop fails to buckle the handcuffed person's seatbelt and the person dies of a severed spine, the cops get sued. That should happen. If a cop fails to do what he is legally obligated to do and it results in some sort of injury or death, the courts should acknowledge this. While they typically do, often enough they don't.

I don't know what you mean by self-defense. You can't claim self-defense when you have someone in handcuffs.

Having a police force which can act with impunity is a rather slippery slope into a situation where they can shoot teenagers in the head for 'looking suspicious' near the site of a carjacking, and where they tear gas civilians to prevent rioters headign in their direction. When you live somewhere where this is standard stuff, and move to get away from the open bribery and violence if you don't pay your mob money, you tend to support any crackdowns on police brutality elsewhere.

If you don't hold the police accountable for their actions; their actions just keep getting worse, until it's no longer even possible to hold them accountable if you wanted to.

@abge- see this is the issue. Right now officers are held to civilian standards sometimes and above civilian standards other times. Before the UCMJ soldiers could be tried in civilian court. This raised an issue where a soldier having killed a child who he suspected of having a bomb strapped to his chest could be prosecuted under civilian law. The UCMJ was created so that that soldier was protected so he could focus on protecting his objectives, other soldiers, and non-combatants. Police need a separate Judicial system federally controlled and having a TRUE jury of their peers. In the UCMJ a panel of officers and enlisted are the jury, they do not know the serviceman in question and decide based on the evidence and the UCMJ. This needs to happen to police. Most police do not agree with murdering people; thats why they are police. So allowing them to serve on a jury convicting another officer under a separate and more responsive system just makes sense.

"And if a cop follows SOP and someone dies, they won't and shouldn't go to jail either."

The problem is that police departments write their own SOP manuals, and they are judged against them by other cops and by department and government officials who want to avoid scandals and lawsuits at all costs. Declaring all acts of police violence "within policy" is the go-to tactic for getting people (who apparently never stop and think about who is writing and enforcing these policies, and whether or not they're impartial arbiters) to shut up and go away with a shrug.

The Law should be the standard by which police officers should be judged, not their own policy manuals.

"Police need a separate Judicial system federally controlled and having a TRUE jury of their peers."

Are you kidding? Police officers are civilians. Soldiers are not.

Personally, I would like my police to be closer to civilians than the military, so I have a hard time justifying a military-style court for police.

@Tolstoy,

Yes, that is an issue as well, but a separate one, I believe. The point I was trying to make is that there are occupational hazards of being a cop and if someone dies despite a cops best efforts, they shouldn't be prosecuted.

@abge- I agree with you. they should when they dont follow SOP but I think that it should be in a separate system
@bo- I agree in baltimore those officers should be punished, losing their jobs and ossibly even negligent homicide, or manslaughter. but murder is not the equivalent of your family getting sued; sorry to inform you.
@HR- I am not suggesting letting officers go, but they need better oversight. This comes in the form of a separate judicial system, better training, and the body cams.

Why are cops so special that they need their own court system? Lots of people perform high-stress jobs with the potential to injure others. Should they all have separate courts?

@bo/abge- I only use the military system as an example. the police are already considered a paramilitary force. They are a force between civilians and military and should not be held to either standard. they should have their own.

"but murder is not the equivalent of your family getting sued; sorry to inform you."

No shit. I never said it is. I said professionals in the service industry, which police officers are, get punished accordingly when they fail to do their jobs. Police officers are held to a higher standard than most other people because their job is more important than most other people. Why are you fighting that?